FPM app: a MATLAB application for Fourier ptychographic microscopy reconstruction

Abstract

One of the main limitations of optical microscopy is the fact that while increasing the resolution of microscopes, due to objectives mechanical constructions (large numerical aperture objectives has also larger magnifications), their field of view (FOV) is decreasing thus it is not possible to observe sample both in high resolution and large FOV. One of the techniques that can overcome this limitation is Fourier ptychographic microscopy (FPM), which combines information from many illumination angles to increase object image resolution. FPM hardware can be straightforwardly implemented (e.g. by placing LED array instead of illuminator in classical brightfield microscope), but it lacks proper open-source software, which is a barrier for non-expert users. In order to make FPM more accessible we present our recently proposed, simple, universal, semi-automatic and highly intuitive, open source graphical user interface (GUI) FPM application called the <i>FPM app</i>. Apart from implementing the FPM in approachable GUI app, we also made several modifications in the FPM image reconstruction process itself, that will make FPM more automatic, noise-robust and faster.